It’s really important to “make do” and not complain about what you don’t have.

As the old saying goes, “I was sad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.”

Stop complaining and use what you have!

Joe Bob makes a good point in this recent comment:

I hadn’t thought about it that way, but it’s true.

“I wish I had time to garden…”

“I wish I had space…”

“I wish I could get out of debt…”

“I wish I could work on my book idea…”

“Sigh…”

That’s pathetic. Especially when applied in a spirit of envy.

Envy is ugly and gross. When something nice happens to someone, often there’s some self-centered person that will say, “I wish that would happen to me…” or worse, “they don’t deserve that…”

Guess what? No one “deserves” anything, really. At least not anything good.

When we tried to expatriate to the Caribbean, we learned how hard it can be to go without some of the simple conveniences we take for granted in the states. Things like being able to find what you need at a hardware store, the ability to pay bills online, or just hit a Walmart and get food and clothing. Everything was much harder and took longer. It was a good “check” on what we’d always assumed was “normal” life. It’s not normal everywhere.

Yet we found people that made things happen despite all the obstacles. My friend Mike was able to garden and live and build his own house, despite lacking a vehicle (or driving experience), lacking a college education, lacking more than perhaps $20 a day in income, and lacking most power tools.

He made things happen.

If you have a little space, use it. Often God won’t give you more if you’re not using what you have well.

You don’t need acreage and a tractor and all that to start garden. Garden where you live, whether that means on a borrowed plot, in containers, or in a tiny bed alongside your house, like City Lot Gardening did with this year’s sweet potatoes:

If there is something you want to do, don’t dodge it until the timing is perfect.

It will never be perfect. There is no perfect here on earth.

Make something happen. If there’s something you wish you could do, it’s usually better to fail trying than not to try. Pick yourself up and try again.

Don’t make excuses. You can do it. And don’t shoot down people that are trying. Even if you’re too sick, old, weak or completely broke to do something, find someone else and encourage him!

Finally, as Katie writes on a previous post about making do:

“I enjoyed reading this David. I can relate to a lot you said. I grew up in the city, though I was exposed to rural living through members of our church. When I married and moved into my husband’s urban home with a tiny backyard in Milwaukee, I felt my heart overflow with gratitude for that tiny little 20×20 backyard that we transformed into our first garden. That is where I learned. Heck it was simple square foot gardening but man did I learn. I loved it. It gave me the foundation to eventually scale up, and through God’s providence we are now cultivating 12,000 sq ft of food gardens upon 19 acres along the Niagara Escarpment.”

Have a great weekend.